Birds and the Fruit- Farm 279 



that too many cutworms spoil the tomato patch. 

 A robin treats her family to poimds and poimds 

 of cutworms, each summer, but she also eats a 

 cherry! Off goes her head! How about the man 

 who raises wormy cherries? He demands just as 

 much per bushel — worms and all — as if the fruit 

 was first-class. The innocent piu-chaser thinks 

 that it might be a good thing to let loose a few 

 robins in that man's cherry orchard. Does he 

 think so? Not he. He, as is said, is saving at the 

 spigot and leaking at the bung. No, he is not a 

 stingy man — ^he gives a nickel for the mission in 

 China. No, he is not an ignorant man — ^he went 

 to school; he can read, write, and cipher. But he 

 yearns to preserve that nine-hundred-mile freight 

 train full of bugs; he believes in the laissez faire, 

 the free-trade theory of worms; the let-alone 

 theory, save as to birds; kill birds, raise bugs. 

 If only these fruit-growers and farmers who do all 

 they can to kill birds might have all the bugs on 

 their farms and in their vineyards and orchards, — 

 and keep them there! But no; these are the very 

 men who complain first and loudest and demand 

 State and Congressional appropriations for experi- 

 ment stations and the assignment of experts from 

 the Department of Agriculture at Washington to 

 kill insects and fungi for them — ^while they kill 

 birds. The United States now protects all migra- 

 tory and all insectivorous birds — or at least, the 

 law of 1913 was enacted for this purpose. Several 

 States have protective laws; but as yet the hand of 



